Restaurant Owner Explains Decision To Post LeSean McCoy’s Tiny Tip

Tommy Up, the owner of Philadelphia burger joint PYT, took to Facebook to explain his reasons for posting LeSean McCoy’s minuscule tip, which yesterday went viral and pissed a whole lot of people off. One of those people was me. I didn’t think it was very professional for the establishment to post McCoy’s bill without his permission.

Not surprisingly, Up sees things a little differently. And in the interest of fairness, here’s his full statement on the incident:

I would like to address the LeSean McCoy tipping situation and our role in it.

For starters, I take total and complete responsibility for sharing this receipt. It was not our server’s decision, it was mine. I am to blame.

I decided to take action after some serious thought. And while I’d like to apologize to Mr McCoy, I cannot in good conscience do so. I stand by my actions one hundred percent.

Mr McCoy and his three companions came into my place on Monday afternoon, and immediately the whole staff was excited. Mr McCoy is a skilled athlete and is one of our beloved Philadelphia Eagles. A true Philly legend and a sports hero. Understandably my staff was really pumped, especially on the heels of they terrific win the day before. (Go Eagles!).

Mr McCoy and his friend sat inside at a booth next to my management and next to me. They were given excellent service. Impeccable service. If anything, our server was a little nervous as was our food runner, because they are big, big fans.

He and his group, from the moment they sat down, were verbally abusive to our staff in the most insulting ways. The derogatory statements about women and their sheer contempt for the staff serving them wasn’t the end, however. After Mr McCoy and his group left I looked over and saw their server, my friend, with his head bowed down and with a very confused look on his face. I took the receipt out of his hand and I couldn’t believe that anyone could be so callous. Mr McCoy had left a .03% tip for our staff. Our staff that was beyond excited to see him walk into our burger joint and was excited to serve him. That’s twenty cents on a tab of over $60. Twenty cents that our server has to split with the food runner and the bartender. Two dimes from an insulting multimillionaire.

I bet Mr McCoy is usually an awesome dude. And everyone has their bad days. But I’m from Philly and have had the pleasure of meeting many of our bad ass sports heroes. Ron Jaworski I met as a kid and I love. Iverson I loved. Mike Schmidt! You name ’em. I love all of our athletes past and present. Hometown heroes who treat those below them with some respect. And maybe Mr McCoy was having a “bad day” after his big victory all that, but the reports of him receiving “bad service” is a complete slanderous lie, and my crew here is better than that and deserves better than that.

At the end of the day, I did what I felt my heart told me to do. And I don’t want anything from Mr McCoy, but…maybe an apology to his server who gave him excellent service would be cool.

Again, I am the owner and I take full responsibility for my actions. Eagles fans, I feel ya. Id be pissed too. But a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do and stick up for his friends.

Hate mail should be directed to tommy@pytburger.com. I will respond to you right after I catch up on this mornings hate mail.

So there you have it. That’s how a .20 cent tip stays in the news cycle for 36 hours — when neither side backs down.

We may never know what actually went down at PYT. It may become one of the great mysteries of our time. And most important mysterious of our time.

Join The Discussion

I have a theory. Lesean be there wif Ta’Varius, Dontrell, and Leroy. The check come and Lesean say “I got this”. Then Lesean axe Ta’Varius “how much the tip is on 60?” an Ta’Varius say “twenny percent” nut Lesean think he say “twenny cent” so dat what he put down. See, Ta’Varius know this $hit cause he go to college too an he even do his own homework. So naturally, Lesean defer to Ta’Varius.